City of Hope Joins Forces with TGen to Bring More Firepower to the Fight Against Cancer

November 30, 2016
| by City of Hope

Together, City of Hope and TGen will accelerate the speed at which research discoveries are translated into cures for patients.

It’s an exciting alliance, and one that will shape the future of precision medicine.

City of Hope is joining forces with the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) to accelerate the speed with which scientists and medical staff can convert research discoveries into cures for patients.

The alliance is based on a simple premise: City of Hope will provide a state-of-the-art clinical setting in which to advance the scientific breakthroughs made by TGen.

It’s all part of the organizations’ efforts to augment their expertise in precision medicine, an important emerging approach for both disease prevention and the treatment of complex conditions.

“Patients want choices and access to the newest and most advanced care available,” said Robert W. Stone, president and chief executive officer of City of Hope. “City of Hope and TGen share a common vision for improving patient outcomes, and our collaboration will speed cancer cures by rapidly advancing discoveries to define high-risk populations, identifying targets for prevention and treatment, and promoting initiatives that close health equity gaps.”

The ability to better diagnose, treat, cure and prevent diseases depends on three critical factors: discovering the genetic causes of diseases, understanding why individuals respond to different therapies, and translating this understanding into new diagnostic tests and therapies.

Taken together, these factors comprise precision medicine.

“Precision medicine is the future of cancer care,” said Steven T. Rosen, M.D., provost and chief scientific officer for City of Hope. “Together, City of Hope and TGen will cover the bench-to-bedside continuum. Our complementary strengths will propel us to the forefront of personalized medicine in alignment with our nation’s ‘Moonshot’ initiative.”

The alliance plays to the strengths of each organization. City of Hope is a pioneer in the fields of bone marrow transplantation, hematologic malignancies, select solid tumors and diabetes. TGen, meanwhile, is a leader in applying genomic analysis and bioinformatics to cancer drug development. Together, City of Hope and TGen will transform the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

Jeffrey M. Trent, Ph.D., president and research director for TGen, said that the partnership will enable the deployment of genomic-enabled medicines and the chance to truly disrupt the modern medical landscape.

“Our aim is to not only navigate this changing field, but lead it,” he said.

And the alliance should yield immediate results.

City of Hope and TGen will collaborate to develop Personalized Hope, a comprehensive program to detect disease sooner and improve patient quality of life and survival. They will focus their respective strengths in immunotherapy and genomics to rapidly gain new insights into immune function and expand opportunities for the design of new therapeutic interventions.

In short, they will bring their expertise to bear on destroying a common enemy: cancer.